Hello loves! While I haven't been writing, I have been working on updating some issues that have been hanging around on the layout! The Character change box is now at the bottom of the page, beside the up/down arrows! Green and Gold dragon flight dates have been shifted to the bottom of the page, where the (useless!) discord widget was located. Where the dragon flights were in the header, is now replaced by a Monthly Event box! This will be updated at the start of each month, with a fun mini-event you can take part in, if you want to! Thistle!
04.Oct.19, 09:33 PM
F’drel nodded tiredly in agreement to moving somewhere more comfortable than a bare stone floor and let R’dal help him up. He sunk into the nest chair when R’dal brought him over to it, letting R’dal arrange the both of them however he liked. The chair really was soft, a far cry from the floor, though honestly F’drel didn’t care that much where in his weyr he was sitting just then. A soft chair didn’t make talking about things he’d hidden for turns any easier. Didn’t make it worse, certainly, and F’drel nestled in closer to his friend, twining their fingers together when R’dal took his hand.
“I can try,” he whispered, almost too tired to be afraid of talking anymore. “It’s still…a big question, but I’ll try to…” F’drel paused, attempting to organize his thoughts. There were a lot of parts to that question, lots of factors, multiple answers. Part of him wanted to scoff and ask R’dal if he couldn’t guess, but that was mean to R’dal, and F’drel already knew that R’dal always thought the best of people. Instead he took a couple minutes to settle on how he wanted to start before speaking.
“There are, I guess, two main experiences that are...foundational to how I think about Lords and other people in power, I suppose.” F’drel started slowly, stumbling a bit on how to word everything. “Or, two people, maybe. The first was the Lord of Nabol. Not the current one, his father, Lord Janderian. He was lord when I was born, so he was in charge of the household for most of my childhood, and he was...not very tolerant, I guess. We - the drudges, and even the servants - he didn’t care about us beyond what we could do for him. So he didn’t like, starve us, or anything, but he only gave us enough food and such that we could still do our jobs efficiently. It was like, a business thing for him. Get the most productivity for the least amount of investment on his part, and he didn’t really... think of us as people who mattered, I don’t think. I started working full time when I was eight…” He trailed off for a moment. It was hard for him to figure out how much of this was relevant, so F’drel was just saying a lot and hoping some of it, any of it, would help answer R’dal’s question.
“If he felt we weren’t performing our duties up to his standards, we’d be punished. More work, mostly. He considered having us hit as beneath him and his station. One of his sons sometimes did, but it was rare and all the others followed their father’s lead. So I think... having him in charge, when I was real young, it sort of established this idea that Lords only cared about you for as much as you could give them.” F’drel paused again, licking his lips that had gone dry. Janderian was the easy part of his two points.
“And then when I was twelve, Lord Janderian died, and the current Lord, Jimeridan, took over. He was always less strict than his father, less demanding, so that changed a little, I guess, but I didn’t really notice because my mom died a few months after the Lord, not long after I turned thirteen.” His voice caught a little there. F’drel didn’t talk about his mother often, even with his siblings. He loved her, though as time went on he realized she wasn’t really the best mother. She loved them a lot, no doubt, she thought of them as the most important part of her life, but… well, F’drel’s thoughts on his mother didn’t really have any bearing on R’dal’s question.
“It was… it was hard, after that. I felt even more responsible for my siblings, because Lord Janderian taught us that we were the only ones that cared about each other, and if I didn’t look out for them, no one would. And I was the oldest brother, so I had to. I didn’t... I didn’t realize at the time, but, looking back, I was... in order to protect them, I felt like I had to be a proper adult for them, and sort of… withdrew from them, a little. I don’t know, it wasn’t intentional, I just… I wasn’t as open with them as I used to be, after that. A-and I…” F’drel stumbled, heart pounding again, the shaking returning a little. “I was lonely and got more withdrawn, and... and one of the Lord’s sons noticed. Lord’s brother, he was Janderian’s son, Jimeridan’s brother, not important, really, but… Anyway, he started paying attention to me, and he was kind, and he would sometimes pull me from my assigned duties to do something for him, easy stuff like running a message or fetching something from his room. And at some point he got me permanently reassigned, so I cleaned his room, made his bed, that sort of thing, instead of working in the laundry or cleaning in general. It was less work than I was used to, and sometimes he just wanted me to be around while he wrote at his desk, or something. It was weird, but I didn’t think...”
At that point F’drel needed to pause, closing his eyes and taking several long breaths. He realized he’d started gripping R’dal’s hand tighter as he spoke, and very intentionally loosed his hold. His hand had gotten a little stiff from how tense it had been and F’drel focused on that instead of the next part of the explanation.
“I can try,” he whispered, almost too tired to be afraid of talking anymore. “It’s still…a big question, but I’ll try to…” F’drel paused, attempting to organize his thoughts. There were a lot of parts to that question, lots of factors, multiple answers. Part of him wanted to scoff and ask R’dal if he couldn’t guess, but that was mean to R’dal, and F’drel already knew that R’dal always thought the best of people. Instead he took a couple minutes to settle on how he wanted to start before speaking.
“There are, I guess, two main experiences that are...foundational to how I think about Lords and other people in power, I suppose.” F’drel started slowly, stumbling a bit on how to word everything. “Or, two people, maybe. The first was the Lord of Nabol. Not the current one, his father, Lord Janderian. He was lord when I was born, so he was in charge of the household for most of my childhood, and he was...not very tolerant, I guess. We - the drudges, and even the servants - he didn’t care about us beyond what we could do for him. So he didn’t like, starve us, or anything, but he only gave us enough food and such that we could still do our jobs efficiently. It was like, a business thing for him. Get the most productivity for the least amount of investment on his part, and he didn’t really... think of us as people who mattered, I don’t think. I started working full time when I was eight…” He trailed off for a moment. It was hard for him to figure out how much of this was relevant, so F’drel was just saying a lot and hoping some of it, any of it, would help answer R’dal’s question.
“If he felt we weren’t performing our duties up to his standards, we’d be punished. More work, mostly. He considered having us hit as beneath him and his station. One of his sons sometimes did, but it was rare and all the others followed their father’s lead. So I think... having him in charge, when I was real young, it sort of established this idea that Lords only cared about you for as much as you could give them.” F’drel paused again, licking his lips that had gone dry. Janderian was the easy part of his two points.
“And then when I was twelve, Lord Janderian died, and the current Lord, Jimeridan, took over. He was always less strict than his father, less demanding, so that changed a little, I guess, but I didn’t really notice because my mom died a few months after the Lord, not long after I turned thirteen.” His voice caught a little there. F’drel didn’t talk about his mother often, even with his siblings. He loved her, though as time went on he realized she wasn’t really the best mother. She loved them a lot, no doubt, she thought of them as the most important part of her life, but… well, F’drel’s thoughts on his mother didn’t really have any bearing on R’dal’s question.
“It was… it was hard, after that. I felt even more responsible for my siblings, because Lord Janderian taught us that we were the only ones that cared about each other, and if I didn’t look out for them, no one would. And I was the oldest brother, so I had to. I didn’t... I didn’t realize at the time, but, looking back, I was... in order to protect them, I felt like I had to be a proper adult for them, and sort of… withdrew from them, a little. I don’t know, it wasn’t intentional, I just… I wasn’t as open with them as I used to be, after that. A-and I…” F’drel stumbled, heart pounding again, the shaking returning a little. “I was lonely and got more withdrawn, and... and one of the Lord’s sons noticed. Lord’s brother, he was Janderian’s son, Jimeridan’s brother, not important, really, but… Anyway, he started paying attention to me, and he was kind, and he would sometimes pull me from my assigned duties to do something for him, easy stuff like running a message or fetching something from his room. And at some point he got me permanently reassigned, so I cleaned his room, made his bed, that sort of thing, instead of working in the laundry or cleaning in general. It was less work than I was used to, and sometimes he just wanted me to be around while he wrote at his desk, or something. It was weird, but I didn’t think...”
At that point F’drel needed to pause, closing his eyes and taking several long breaths. He realized he’d started gripping R’dal’s hand tighter as he spoke, and very intentionally loosed his hold. His hand had gotten a little stiff from how tense it had been and F’drel focused on that instead of the next part of the explanation.
